


Before I Know the Feeling

by 2towels



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Date gone wrong, Keith (Voltron) is a Mess, Klance Week 2018, Lance (Voltron) is a Good Date, M/M, Mutual Pining, POV Multiple, Pining Keith (Voltron), Pining Lance (Voltron), Shiro is a good brother, events based on the song from the Waitress musical which I haven't seen, good song though, this is late but don't worry I'm on it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-04
Updated: 2018-06-04
Packaged: 2019-05-18 01:23:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14842898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/2towels/pseuds/2towels
Summary: Keith stiffened and when he looked up again there was a hardened and steely look in his gaze, marching past Shiro and directly into the living room where the nervous pillar still waited. “I’m ready.” He said directly, staring into Lance’s face with what could only be described at earnest determination.“O-Oh. Right. Hey, um.” Lance flicked his gaze away while they backed up towards the front door, “You look amazing.” His voice was unbelievably fond, if not stressed to get the words out, and Keith looked frozen when he registered the compliment. His face darkened and hands fumbled at nothing.“Thanks.” He eventually croaked.--Keith incorrectly assumes the beautiful boy from his college asking him out was just following a dare, so he says yes to throw him off and proceeds to be treated to the best night of his life.Klance Week 2018 Day 2: Date Gone Wrong





	Before I Know the Feeling

**Author's Note:**

> THERE'S A LOT OF perspective changes lol sorry readers I thought it would be fun but if it doesn't come of that way it was just an experiment i promise
> 
> Also I know this is late for Day 2 because its technically Day 4 for me lol but I've got it all worked out don't worry it's coming!!! Klance Week is going to be finished this time!!!!
> 
> The song is from the Waitress musical (which i haven't even listened to all the songs on but lahgela this one was addictive okay and it's reminded me of Klance since forever), specifically [this one](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JeQZY9_451w)♥

                “This was a mistake.” Keith hissed, ignoring Shiro’s following condescending smile.

                A whirring started up as Shiro plugged in the hair dryer next to the sink and Keith fell onto the closed toilet seat. “Don’t slouch. You need to make a good impression and you’re going to wrinkle your nice shirt.” A little aggressively, Shiro pushed at Keith’s shoulder until he complied and began drying his damp hair for him. “Besides,” He began as if he had been prompted, “You’re going to have a great time if you calm down.”

                Keith growled petulantly, and Shiro tugged at his bangs. “I’m not going to have a great time if I don’t even want to go.”

                “Stop lying!” The older man laughed as he started a new section of hair.

 

* * *

 

                They sat at the table farthest from the front of the restaurant at Lance’s weird insistence, and though there was an awkward hitch where Lance pulled out a chair for Keith and Keith had no idea what he was doing, things had smoothed over once they sat. Lance was talking animatedly about his roommate and the restaurant he worked at, but Keith could only catch snippets of what he was even saying, a little defensive and dazed about the whole situation making it so far.

                “Why didn’t we go there?” Keith asked, clearing his throat a little when he realized how gruff he sounded.

                Lance paused and his enthusiastic hands fell to begin fiddling with his napkin. “Uh,” He began, sounding a little less confident, “I didn’t think you would want to meet my friends so fast.” The tips of his ears burned red and Keith, remembering what he might have been implying, flushed in turn. “And this seemed nicer because I wanted to take you somewhere a little fancy.”

                The waitress interrupted whatever Keith was going to reply with, and when Lance’s bright eyes flicked to Keith’s he frantically looked down at his menu.

* * *

 

                “I don’t understand why you’re so mad about this date.” Shiro hummed as he finished fluffing Keith’s bangs, “If you don’t like him, why’d you say yes?”

                Keith bristled, slapping Shiro’s hand away from his face, “I didn’t! He tricked me!” Before his brother could protest, Keith ducked away and shoved his hands roughly into his fluffy hair, shuffling it all out of place.

                Shiro groaned as he followed, “How did he _trick_ you, Keith? Just let yourself enjoy something.”

                “He came up to me,” Keith hissed, “and his friend behind him wouldn’t stop laughing. I _know_ it was a joke to ask me out so I said yes because it would be easy to get back at him and he just lit up! Like it was still part of the joke!”

                A beat of pause in Shiro’s following steps threw Keith off, and he turned in his bedroom doorframe to look back at his brother. “Keith…” Shiro said carefully, the same voice he used when there was something he needed to explain, “Why would you think he was joking?”

                Keith rolled his eyes and shouldered into his bedroom. “He’s always mooning at me from across the room during classes and he looks at me with this _stupid_ grin. Then he’ll turn away like he knows something and whisper to his friends. I’m not stupid, Shiro, I know when I’m being made fun of.”

                Shiro softened in the doorway, “I know you’re not, champ.” When Keith flopped onto his bed on his back, Shiro moved to follow, “Have you considered...that he might not be making fun of you? Maybe he just wanted you to notice him.”

                The younger groaned loudly and rolled away, seeming restless. “Why would he, Shiro? It’s not a secret I’m not exactly the most approachable guy.” When faced with himself in the mirror across the room, Keith began mussing his hair and creating new cowlicks where Shiro had meticulously laid them down.

                “So, you’re a little grumpy. Some people like that, you know.” He pointed out wisely, pausing as a shoe flew past his side to land against the far wall of Keith’s bedroom. Almost resolutely, the doorbell rang. Keith’s head whipped to Shiro, and Shiro’s to his watch. Six-thirty on the dot.

* * *

 

                “Thanks, Plax.” Lance nodded to the waitress as she bustled away with their dinner orders.

                Before he could stop himself, Keith blurted, “Do you know one another?” Obviously they knew one another.

                Lance’s eyes gleamed a little at the question, though he rubbed the back of his neck as if he were embarrassed to admit it. “Uh, yeah. She’s an old friend. I was sort of nervous, so when she told me she was working tonight...that’s another reason we came here. Just in case you wanted to bail or something.” Realizing his words, Lance’s hand slammed almost frantically onto the table, making Keith jump and narrow his eyes. “ _Not_ that I thought you were going to stand me up. You’re just like,” He trailed off a second.

                _Scary, off-putting, unsettling, way too invested in this joke—_

“Really cool…so.” Lance finished lamely, despite the sincerity in his voice.

                “Oh.”

* * *

 

                “He’s definitely just making fun of me.” Lance cooed miserably, smoothing his hands down his shirt for the nth time. “We’re going to Luxia’s because Plax is working tonight, though. So, just in case he ditches…”

                Hunk snorted, shuffling his Tupperware containers together and stacking them dutifully from the kitchen. “He’s not going to ditch you. He looked way less scary than usual after you asked him out so I think he’s either excited or confused.”

                “Oh god, he said yes as a joke.” Lance’s voice bubbled suddenly, feeling something dreadful rise in his chest at the prospect and unable to cope with the inevitability. “That’s fine then.”

                “Good.” Hunk said, cheeks puffing as he sighed and packed his containers into a pretty picnic basket, preparing to sweep his girlfriend away for a romantic night as well. “You can just worry about that instead of your shirt.” When his friend whipped his head to him in alarm, Hunk sighed again, “Man, I’m just messing with you. Don’t get in that weird mindset you have where you get all 'challenger-approaches' about dates. You’re going to make him get defensive and punch you or something.”

                Lance looked at his hands, clenching and unclenching them to help him think. “I don’t do that,” He eventually denied, straightening his posture to pace around the room, “But you’re right, he would probably do that, he could totally be a criminal—oh my god, Hunk, we don’t know anything about Keith except for that he’s hot. What if he tries to, like, kill and _eat me_ or something?” Agitated and desperate to busy himself in his nerves, lest he be left to his own devices and leave early and arrive too awkwardly before Keith was even ready to face him for their date or maybe challenge, Lance began helping Hunk pack his picnic basket, making sure all the corners of his plasticware were snapped closed correctly and using it as a stimulating release for his increasing pent up energy.

                “He’s not going to eat you.” Hunk finally said calmly, “Keith’s not that weird, dude. He seems like a nice enough guy. I’m sure you two will have a great time. You just need to get back to your regular Lance self and stop stressing out so much, you’re going to give yourself whatever kind of wrinkles you get when you frown like that.”

                A focused meditation took over Lance’s posture while he gave himself a moment’s relaxation, smoothing his features at Hunk’s words and rubbing a hand over his forehead exactly where his best friend had inadvertently indicated he would wrinkle if he kept scowling like he was. “Okay, but maybe he _is_ weird.” Lance continued, trying to tone himself down and knowing he was seeming unsuccessful. He smoothed his shirt again. “What if he, like, slurps really loudly or eats with his hands or doesn’t actually know my name or something?”

                With practiced ease, Hunk removed the apron over his waist when all the containers were sealed within his picnic basket and placed the garment on the counter, turning seriously to Lance while he buttoned the top of his date night shirt and straightened himself out without a mirror. “Aw,” Hunk’s tone was sympathetic suddenly, understanding and genuine to something Lance wasn’t aware he had conveyed, “You really like Keith, huh? I promise, dude, do not worry so much about the little things like that, if you have a good time you won’t even notice his soup slurping because it’s impossible to slurp soup louder than you.” He slid the straps of his basket onto the crook of his elbow, picked his phone up from the counter, smiled, and began to walk into the living room of their shared apartment instead, knowing Lance would follow despite his appalled huff.

                “I don’t…” Lance grasped at no defense, scuffing the bottom of his shoe lightly against the rough carpet of their living room, “I don’t know. Maybe I just didn’t think he’d say yes.”

* * *

 

                “So, um,” Lance didn’t glance after his waitress friend as she walked after placing down their dinners, instead keeping his eyes trained on the beads of condensation dribbling down the side of his glass of water, “What are you studying?” He didn’t glance at Keith either, which the other boy was grateful for, wanting the full advantage of being able to take all of his companion in without the fear of being caught, but there was a strain in his voice that sent a strange guilt through Keith’s stomach.

                “I’m undecided.” He settled on shortly. Lance seemed to deflate for the briefest of seconds, glancing at the painting on the wall nearest to them and nodding.

                “That’s cool. That’s fine. I didn’t really decide until recently either.” The jittery boy hummed, tapping his fingers at the edge of the table and not noticing Keith’s gentle irritability at the gesture. When Keith didn’t ask Lance to elaborate on his schooling, however, the fingers stopped entirely, and Keith felt like he had missed an important social cue, but Lance smiled when he glanced up and simply asked a completely different question to deter from the awkward stretch.

* * *

 

                The house was smaller than Lance anticipated, but not knowing Keith very well had led him to expect a void of sorts more than anything, so he stood outside with his carefully arranged bundle of flowers, delicately twisted a few of the stems so they were facing the correct way for the best view, and waited for someone to respond to the doorbell he had just rung. He thought he had heard a scuffle of sorts, but he wasn’t one to eavesdrop beyond doors, and inevitably the heavy frame swung open to reveal a muscular and scarred man with a warm smile who took in Lance’s appearance obviously and without an ounce of any hidden amusement or mockery Lance was afraid of finding at the up-and-down.

                “Hi, you must be Lance.” The man said, eyes lighting up on his face despite his scrutinizing, “I’m Keith’s brother, Shiro. He’s right upstairs.” The gaze lingered a second again, stopping short at the bundle of innocent red blooms in Lance’s hands, and Lance felt his grip tighten on them, feeling extra. “I’ll grab him, it might be a few minutes. You can come in.”

                “Right.” Lance shuffled in behind the older man, nodding stiffly and feeling a lump in his throat at the idea of overly-embarrassing himself when Shiro pounded up a flight of stairs at an alarming rate and burst into a room when at the top. More scuffles were sounding, and Lance worried at the shiny paper wrapping that crinkled beneath his palm.

                There wasn’t much scattered among the living room in ways of incriminating familial memorabilia—only a few faded photos on the walls and a few auto magazines on a side table that looked unused—so Lance was left without anything to even pretend to occupy himself with, trying not to spiral into his own world of thought processes. Through the thin walls and flooring and doors, it sounded like Shiro and Keith were having an argument of sorts, with heated whispers that barely qualified as such in-between the sounds of things falling or scattering, and Lance could only wonder in muted bewilderment what could be going on. A part of him, very quietly, hoped that Keith’s home life was completely okay. He was quiet and maybe overly reserved, and Lance wouldn’t pry but he’d looked at Keith long enough in classes to know that he cared about his health and comfort and safety as much as any distant admirer reasonably could.

                The door burst open upstairs again, and Shiro cascaded down the stairs without so much of a hair out of place, smile still intact. “He’ll be down in a second,” He acknowledged the nervous pillar in the center of the room, and Lance nodded gratefully in return, “He just lost one of his shoes.” It was an oddly forced explanation, but Lance didn’t dare question it, taking a deep breath.

                “That’s fine. I’m planning on sweeping him off his feet anyway.” He blurted before he could stop himself, and Shiro blinked at him before bursting into a good-natured laugh, missing the creak of the floorboards above them while Keith slowly willed himself to the stairs as well.

                Lance, face colored, tried to play off his flirting at nothing with a casualty, but when Keith rounded the banister he was stilled in his nerves to an almost silence, crunching the paper under his fingers again almost frantically. “Oh—Keith!” He breathed as embarrassingly eager as possible, drinking in every ounce of his date. He looked smoothed around the edges, pressed down at the collar by an unknown force (Lance wondered if Shiro was the unknown force) and buttoned down to a tamer, quieter ferocity of his usual shades. “These are for you.” Lance bustled, thrusting the flowers between them when they only stared at one another. Keith’s hair looked pinned back at its usual fly-away spots, and as much as Lance had memorized the cowlicks in the past he was mesmerized by the softness in his face once they were set down and his bangs were brushed away. Lance thought he looked beautiful, looked so genuinely unused to the changes that even he was a little off-kilter at the situation, and the _idea_ that he had said yes to even just spending time with Lance, getting to know him and giving him the opportunity to get closer to him, left Lance absolutely elated and astounded. “You look—”

                “I’ll go put these in a—you know.” Keith cut him off, face a shock of embarrassed and ruddy, warm colors Lance wanted to memorize. Without waiting for the compliment, he bolted off, bouquet and all, and Lance was left wide-eyed in his wake, trained on the spot he had just occupied seconds prior.

                Shiro’s smile became tight, and he followed him. Supposedly they reached a kitchen, where Lance could hear more heated whispers pick up and could feel his own ears burn bright red at knowing he could be making an absolute idiot of himself there.

                He wasn’t sure what he would do for damage control if Keith was just elaborately humoring him, but he knew that if that were the case he should be more conscious to avoid It being so embarrassing for him. It was hard, though, with Keith so lovely and hot and mysteriously brooding, and Lance felt a draw to him so inexplicable it was like a gravitational pull of its own immeasurable magnitude.

                The lump returned in Lance’s throat and he tried hard to swallow it down lest he worry himself into wet-eyed territory of self-consciousnesses when the date was already _in-progress_ and unavoidable no matter how aloof Keith might have come off.

* * *

 

                Lance grabbed the bouquet of red roses and immediately replaced it, shaking his head at himself. Too much, and he knew. His panic to Hunk had made him late on his strict schedule, and the nearest florist—despite the shop being owned by his best friend’s mother, thanks for nothing, Pidge—had closed the door in his face with only an apologetic smile when he arrived a minute beyond their closing hours. So, he resigned himself to a grocery store floral selection with a reserved bitterness, trying not to let said bitterness get to him and lead to it feeling as though it was an omen of the rest of the night.

                He wondered if Keith knew anything about flowers as he ran a finger across some bright yellow tulips. Red were the way to go without a doubt to send the message. Strong, but not too strong depending on the flower. Lance prided himself on knowing all the languages of love, flowers being one of them, and while he knew it wasn’t exactly a useful talent to know the meaning of flowers off the top of his head he did know that it made him feel better about trying to convey the deepest parts of himself in such expressions of his feelings.

                Being stuck at a grocery store’s floral section destroyed that vibe, however. There was a section devoted entirely to graduation bouquets and arrangements that took up a majority of the small area, and Lance felt more annoyed at that than the actual lack of more flowers for him to choose from for his date. In the red and dark pink varieties to choose from there were small tulips, medium tulips, and big tulips or small roses and medium roses. Hard pressed, Lance could choose one of the potted Mothers’ Day plants, with pink and red blooms and the ability to not wilt with proper care, but it would lose the principle of the matter and he would feel stupid standing on the steps of Keith’s address and thrusting out a silly little potted plant. So, he resigned himself to a bundle of little and medium red tulips, shoving a few pink ones in because he was a cheater with a good eye and he wanted them to look appealing no matter how the store wanted him to self-arrange his mock of a bouquet.

                The cashier who rang him out didn’t seem like she was having a very good day but Lance was stressing himself out and when he did that he talked. So, he politely ragged on their floral section with as much good humor as possible and dimmed only fractionally at her measured reply of, “It’s really only a sort of convenience area, sir.”

                She told him he couldn’t mix different colored flowers and he made a lighthearted joke about true love knowing no such boundaries but she only took a muted breath and asked if he wanted to grab a new bouquet or buy each flower separately. A bit frantic to be on time, Lance paid for the individual blooms and the highway robbery that came with their convenience and all the while during her manual input of each of the flowers he rambled about his date and about how he was nervous admittedly and maybe didn’t know much about the person he was about to get to know but he had always admired him and always wanted to ask him dumb questions about their classes and his hair and his dreams.

                She wasn’t listening, though, and Lance knew, watching as she re-bundled the flowers much nicer than he had originally and even tied the little string into a small bow when she was done wrapping them again after recounting the stems. He paid with a metaphoric gun to his head of convenient floral marketing and when he gathered up his blooms he was surprised to hear her polite bidding of a nice night followed by her wishing him good luck on his date.

                “Oh.” Is what he said dumbly back, surprised she had listened and maybe a little too excited to hand over the cute little flower arrangement to Keith even if it wasn’t as nice as he had planned, “Thank you.”

* * *

 

                Keith shoved the flowers into the nearest jar he could find without tearing the paper off, sticking it under the faucet of the sink and running the water directly into it while he tried to calm his breaths. As much as he begged himself not to wonder what Lance was about to say, the almost-potential-compliment was on a loop in his mind up to Keith’s embarrassing interruption, and when Shiro fanned into the kitchen after him he took the jar out before it was too full, turned the faucet off, and tried to tame his expression.

                “This might be a real date.” Keith panicked with no hint of distress beyond the tightness in his voice, setting the flowers onto the counter and softly running a fingertip over the edge of a pink tulip’s petals.

                He didn’t have to look up to know Shiro was giving him an understanding expression, as it was everywhere in his whispers. “You’re going to do fine. He seems very nice and he obviously has a crush on you.” There was a quiet laugh in his voice that died when Keith’s head whipped to look at him, flushed and vulnerable.

                “You don’t—No.” Keith simmered simply, clenching his hands and moving the weird plastic wrapping around the flowers down so more of them would be exposed. “What if I say something shitty like I always do and he doesn’t know I didn’t mean it the way people hear it sometimes? What if he’s a fast talker and I don’t know what he’s saying? I already—He already thinks I’m weird because I just snatched these out of his hand, he’s taking this way too seriously.” His whispers were vicious and barely contained, and he was almost worried that Lance would hear his concerns from the other room, but he felt them swell within himself too much to keep them stamped down when faced with such an unfamiliar situation.

                “Hey…” Shiro started softly, but Keith wasn’t finished.

                “What if he—No, he’s definitely nice because he’s friends with that engineering major who brings cookies every Monday and I can’t handle nice people, Shiro, they don’t…He’s wasting his time.” Keith crossed his arms tightly, wrinkling his shirt and Shiro’s nose simultaneously.

                “Listen to me, Keith.” His brother said sternly, placing his hands on his shoulders, “It’s probably not going to go perfectly.”

                “Comforting.” Keith griped immediately.

                Shiro continued, “That’s just how first dates are, but like I said, he seems nice. I know you’re nervous, but I also know underneath all of this you’re excited, too. You would’ve let me do your hair if you weren’t, and I think you should embrace being excited to go out with him because he brought you _flowers_ , and even if it doesn’t go as smoothly as possible and the two of you have a few hiccups you should try to have fun with him because this definitely doesn’t all seem like a joke to me.”

                When Keith lowered his gaze to his crossed arms, then further to his shoes, Shiro tried his final call to arms. “Anyway, the poor guy’s probably sweating bullets out there with how long it’s taking you to find a vase. Are you going to keep him waiting?”

                The younger stiffened and when he looked up again there was a hardened and steely look in his gaze, marching past Shiro and directly into the living room where the nervous pillar still waited. “I’m ready.” He said directly, staring into Lance’s face with what could only be described at earnest determination.

                “O-Oh. Right. Hey, um.” Lance flicked his gaze away while they backed up towards the front door, “You look amazing.” His voice was unbelievably fond, if not stressed to get the words out, and Keith looked frozen when he registered the compliment. His face darkened and hands fumbled at nothing.

                “Thanks.” He eventually croaked.

* * *

 

                Keith watched Lance’s nervous hands flutter with his storytelling in almost hypnotic motions as they waited for their dessert, telling a tale about how he’d fallen out of a tree when he was in middle school. It was overly dramatic in every sense, casting himself as some sort of hero if trees could ever truly be villains, and Keith, despite himself, felt his lips quirking in response to hearing it. Lance was observant and seemed spurred by any small reaction he could garner, though, so his enthusiasm was only magnified by the small passes of Keith’s favor. Keith couldn’t find it in himself to mind either way.

                “So,” Lance concluded lowly, setting his long fingers onto the table at a midway point and begging Keith to reach forward and clasp them through the look in his eyes. Keith begged himself to clasp them as well. “There I was, sprawled on the ground with my water balloon slingshot snapped completely in half, one half under me, the other half in my leg—”

                “Holy shit,” Keith laughed before he could stop the bubbling in his chest, “Did you—”

                “Five stitches, not impressive, barely a scar.” Lance pouted and reported dutifully. Despite the twist in his smile, his bright eyes were alight while he kept his eyes fixed entirely on Keith, and in any other circumstance he knew he would have squirmed under the attention, but something kept him comfortable and at ease in the conversation and he couldn’t help but let his stranded chuckles free.

                “Hey,” Lance said suddenly and softly, and Keith felt his heart stutter at how genuine and open he looked across the table at where his hand still laid, “Would you maybe want to…”

                “Alrighty…” Plaxum returned with a cotton candy cheesecake for Lance and a red velvet lava cake for Keith, all smiles, and Keith couldn’t find it in himself to be nervous at Lance’s awkward trailing off despite the questions he had because of how much he had enjoyed himself thus far, “And there you two have it. Any more refills I can get for you while I’m here?”

                “This is great, Plax, thank you.” Lance smiled, and she dropped the check off and wandered to another table at the far end of the restaurant.

                Lance fiddled with the first bite of his cheesecake seemingly to distract himself, but Keith was much less able to hold himself back. “What were you going to say?” He looked at one of the hands, still lingering, and wondered if that was another thing he was missing, another date cue that was unspoken that he was just inexplicitly supposed to understand. He wanted Lance to be as surprised to have as good of a time as he was, as bizarre of a notion as that was, and so, because it really looked so deliberate and not casual at all, Keith thought he might have wanted to put his hand over Lance’s on that table soon.

                “Oh um.” Lance drew his hand from the table and Keith sucked in a breath as he pushed his meticulously and perfectly placed hair away from being nowhere near his face while his eyes darted a bit. Keith got a sense of de ja vu immediately, and blinked accordingly as Lance’s grin crooked slightly at just the left corner, his eyes cleared when they landed on Keith again, and he asked, “I was just going to ask if you maybe thought we could do this again sometime?” Perfectly white teeth worried at his bottom lip, and he had the audacity to look sheepish and humble, as if his entire existence and presence in Keith’s night and life hadn’t completely changed a part of him through the evening alone.

                Lance put his hand back down when it left his head, back on the table in the awkward middle space, and his eyes shied away as he picked at his blue cheesecake. “I won’t be offended if you say no, no pressure. You’re a little hard to read, but I hope you’ve been having as good a time as I have.” Keith, brain without filter, thought it was a stupid thing to think, because he knew that if he was as brave as Lance and had asked him out again he would be completely offended if Lance had said no after they had such a nice time together, or what had felt like mutually such a nice time. Still, Keith’s heart was warm, and Shiro’s voice in the back of his head was smug and singing aloud about being right at obnoxious levels.

                “Yeah,” Keith mumbled a little, clearing his throat when it came out no more than a barely-affirmative, “I’d want to.” Slowly, hesitantly, he set one of his own hands on the long fingers outstretched towards him on the table, relishing in the smoothness of Lance’s skin the second they made contact, and when Lance’s fingers slipped into his and he glanced up to meet his gaze, he felt like he was opening his eyes to an eternity of unfamiliarity with only the comfort of a partnership in facing it, and that was okay.

* * *

 

                Lance dropped Keith off at the door because he was a gentleman and his mom raised him right. They held hands up the walkway and the three steps after Lance obnoxiously had caught Keith’s tentative brush against the back of his, and it felt more like a buoy than any anchor of sorts, holding Lance afloat where he could feel like dissolving into a puddle of elation and a million other mixed emotions that came with the knowledge that Keith had genuinely enjoyed their time together. His lips were quirked just above their usual scowl into a glimpse of the smile Lance had been given the honor of coaxing out of him a few times over the course of the evening, and while it was a deep contrast to Lance’s permanent grin there was no doubt that either of them were excited to see one another again or that either had enjoyed the time they had spent in one another’s company.

                Keith’s eyes flitted to the windows as they approached the front door, like he expected an audience, but they were drawn shut as they had been when they left and when Keith’s gaze fell on Lance again he seemed to soften fractionally, a bit at a time, and ultimately his smile turned almost gooey as Lance swung their hands.

                “Thank you for letting me take you out. I hope you had a nice time.” Lance said despite the cliché because it was true, “Don’t forget to text me, okay?”

                Keith snorted softly, stepping into Lance’s space with the lightest shuffle of their feet and assuring, “I did. I won’t.” His hand squeezed the gentler, softer one that had earned his trust so unexpectedly over the course of the night and he let his gaze wander obviously down the slope of Lance’s nose, not realizing how blatantly he was implying his want to his date but fixating on the soft lips a moment just the same. They paused in their quirked grin, and Keith flicked back to Lance’s eyes, but Lance’s gaze was boring into Keith with something that stirred an even deeper part of him.

                Lance began, because he had always been polite, “I know it’s the first date, but—”

                Their mouths slotted together at Keith’s insistence, a deep yearn in either of them if their mutual grasping hands had any indication of the matter, and when the contact wasn’t enough Lance dropped Keith’s hand, parted his lips, and grasped him gently at the jaw. The effect was instantaneous, melting into one another, and Lance cherished the heavy chocolate breath Keith breathed into him as he dove in deeper and needier. He used his free hands to grab Lance at his so carefully chosen shirt, crumbling it beneath his grip at the waist and tugging them together as close as they could be when Lance’s hands slid into Keith’s hair to twist in the thick locks he had spent so long staring at and wondering. They lost their footing, stepping forward a moment and back a few more to press against the edge of the doorframe in what had to be uncomfortable for Keith but was so pleasantly overwhelming that he couldn’t find it in himself to mind.

                “Keith,” Lance found himself croaking when he chased every bite on his lips with a fervor, “Um—We should….”

                Keith seemed to understand, at least, despite Lance’s inability to form a coherent sentence fast enough, and he drew his hands off of Lance immediately, leaning his head back to make eye-contact properly and read him with an expression that could only be described as careful. “Are you okay?” Keith asked, voice tight with desire and apparently not exactly understanding what Lance was getting at but throwing himself off all the same.

                Lance was unbearably, unbelievably fond, knowing he was looking directly at a _keeper_ if he ever saw one, and he leaned forward to give Keith a quick peck on the lips to let him know exactly that he was okay and hadn’t been negatively affected by anything he had done. “Goodnight.” He hummed quietly, pressing another kiss to Keith’s forehead when the strain on his face disappeared and was replaced by a more relaxed confusion again, “It’s getting late, and…well, your brother’s inside and all, so.”

                Color returned to Keith’s face in a deep and quick wash, and he lifted himself off the doorframe to lean against Lance for a quick moment before he stepped away. They shared one last brief and shy kiss before Keith toed away towards the door and nodded. “Right...Goodnight. Thanks.” He seemed reluctant, and Lance knew exactly what he was feeling because he was hit with the same lack of willing to step down the stairs.

                “No problem. Text me!” Lance implored again, eyes very bright and serious and smile very, very warm. Keith nodded, chuckled, and ducked inside, his fingers waving all the way until they disappeared behind the heavy door.

* * *

 

                “Glad you had a nice time.” Shiro said as soon as Keith walked into their home and shut the door, “I thought you were locked out because you rang the doorbell about eighteen times, but it turns out that’s just where you chose to get crucified.”

                Keith startled and scowled, picking at bobby pins in his hair. “Shut up…” His face, entirely pink, couldn't lose its small smile.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you guys enjoyed ♥♥♥♥♥ kudos and comment if you can because a girls gotta feel valid you dig but otherwise i just appreciate people taking the time to read so thanks so much ♥♥
> 
> If you were a superfan please consider: Following me on [tumblr](https://2towels.tumblr.com/) (I just had my sister remodel so everything on browser looks pretty pls ♥ ♥ ♥)  
> 


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